Editorial

Few people doubt that healthcare reform is one of the most daunting structural issues the country faces in the coming few years. An ageing population, insufficient investment in modern healthcare facilities, lack of effective healthcare...

Disputes over trade union recognition are getting out of hand. The most logical way to find out which trade union represents the majority of workers at a place of employment is simply to verify the paid-up union membership.
However, such logic...

Free markets should be the best allies of hard-pressed consumers. The EU is a champion of competition because its wants to promote the benefits that a free market economy normally gets for consumers. But in Malta things do not work out quite as...

Two years into the Muscat government, the jury is still out whether Malta is better off. While Labour can be lauded for keeping the economy on track – no mean feat in these days of eurozone turmoil – it has needlessly defaulted on the most basic...

When Carmelo Abela was appointed home affairs minister after the sacking of Manuel Mallia last December in the wake of a shooting incident involving his driver, there were hopes that a standoff over whether or not the Ombudsman has jurisdiction to...

The murder of Russian Opposition politician Boris Nemtsov last Friday, which took place just a stone’s throw away from the Kremlin, has sent shock waves throughout Russia and Europe.
Mr Nemtsov joins a list of politicians, journalists and human...

Upmarket tourism is possibly one of the most misused terms that one finds in any strategic document mapping out the future direction of this important industry. The size of our islands combined with one of the densest populations in Europe...

When more and more public bodies and councils abroad are opening their doors wide open to the public and the press, in Malta an institution whose work is of direct interest to each and every citizen chooses to slam it in their face.
It is not...

The Mepa Board has rejected an application – submitted six years ago by the former government – to construct a wind farm on Is-Sikka l-Bajda. The application was turned down on environmental grounds because of the impact the project would have on...

As the date of the abrogative referendum on spring hunting draws near, there is a question that each politician should be made to answer in public: will he or she be voting in favour or against the retention of spring hunting?
MEPs David Casa and...

Joseph Muscat ought to stop saying that “things could have been done better” or that something was just a “mistake” every time his government blunders.
Two years into its legislative term, it is time for the government to start getting things...

Apart from irregular migration, there can hardly be a more topical subject in Malta today than politics and morality, the theme chosen by The Strickland Foundation for its Mabel Strickland Memorial Lecture on Thursday.
The theme is hardly ever off...

Just when arrangements are being made to relocate a café/restaurant at Golden Bay in a bid to win a Blue Flag, another bay, the largest on the island, risks losing it after the planning authority allowed a concrete platform to be laid in the sand...

The will he/won’t he saga is over. Yesterday it became known that Mgr Charles Scicluna will be Malta’s next Archbishop.
Various names have been mentioned since Archbishop Paul Cremona stepped down for health reasons last year, but in reality few...

Malta’s employment statistics rarely fail to puzzle objective observers of the labour market. This country has one of the lowest unemployment rates in the EU but it also has one of the lowest employment rates.
We have one of the lowest rankings of...

Joseph Muscat is beginning to sound very much like Harold Macmillan, the British Conservative prime minister best remembered for his 1957 quote that “most of our people have never had it so good”. Britain was going through an economic boom at the...

Despite all the efforts made so far, the development of public private partnerships in Malta remains slow but the government is now embarking upon a fresh drive in the hope of striking new deals.
Up to now, only two partnerships come readily to...

It is indeed tragic that it had to be the barbaric and cruel execution of 21 Egyptian Christians by Islamic State militants in Sirte that seems to have spurred the international community into acknowledging that something has to be done about the...

Tonight, at the Manoel Theatre, which was the scene 50 years ago of the launch of a new voluntary organisation pledged to safeguard Malta’s cultural heritage and natural environment, Din l-Art Ħelwa will be celebrating its birth with a concert.
To...

In an island where debates on political and economic strategy seem to have no limit, many wonder why important issues like the health of the nation rarely make an impact on public opinion. Yet our economic future greatly depends on the health of...